Iowa poll: Sanders surges to within 7 points of Clinton

MINNEAPOLIS — The Democratic Party, whose presidential race has been mostly overshadowed by Donald Trump and the Republicans, heads into the fall with its nomination contest far less certain than it once appeared and braced for a series of events that will have a significant effect on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign. MINNEAPOLIS — Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz prevented consideration of a resolution at the party’s summer meeting here that praised President Obama and offered backing for the nuclear agreement with Iran, according to knowledgeable Democrats.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — In ways both subtle and blunt, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign is sending a message to Vice President Joe Biden about his potential presidential campaign: This won’t be easy.One of the hot headlines of the week went something like this: Hillary Clinton called Republicans “terrorists.” But the more important controversy is the actual policy fight behind the name-calling.

Hillary Clinton has spent years locking up support from the Democratic Party’s leadership, so rather than inheriting his party’s machine, Joe Biden would have to find a way to take it back. Clinton’s standing has been eroded both by her own shaky handling of the e-mail controversy and by the populist energy fueling the challenge of Sen. The resolution was drafted with the intention of putting the national committee on record in support of the agreement as Congress prepares to take up the issue when members return from their August recess. While Clinton and her team speak warmly of Biden in public, they have taken steps to make clear how they’ve taken control of the party’s establishment in hopes of discouraging the vice president from entering the race.

The gotcha version is mostly true: “Now, extreme views about women, we expect that from some of the terrorist groups,” Clinton said on the stump Thursday. “But it’s a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States.” Understandably, Republicans have been eager to point out the use of the “T” word. Clinton referred to certain Republican presidential hopefuls’ apparent views on “programmes and services to help women take care of themselves”. The Republican National Committee called her language “a new low,” and Ben Carson, a surging candidate in GOP polls, had this to say: “They tell you that there’s a war on women. In his place, backers greeted a curious few in a hotel suite 20 floors above the official gathering, handing out chocolate bars wrapped with a stylized photo of Biden behind the wheel of a convertible and an “I’m Ridin’ with Biden” label.

Her weakened position in the polls has stoked talk about a possible late entry from Vice President Biden, which could dramatically change the dynamic of the race. Zogby said Saturday that, in the end, this produced a satisfactory outcome. “We wanted to show support for the president,” he said. “We found that the best way to show support was a letter that members would sign on to, and the overwhelming majority of DNC members signed onto the letter. In a speech to the party’s most committed activists, Clinton cast herself as its standard-bearer and vowed to win the presidential race and rebuild the party from the ground up. “We are building something that will last long after next November,” Clinton told party officials gathered in a Minneapolis ballroom. “Other candidates may be fighting for a particular ideology, but I’m fighting for you and your families.” The speech came after her team rolled out a string of high-profile endorsements in early-voting states and scheduled an onslaught of fundraisers across the country in the effort to ice a Biden bid before he even gets started.

This is the President Obama we elected in 2008 who said, ‘I choose diplomacy over conflict,’ and he did it.” A party spokeswoman and said procedural issues prevented the proposed resolution from being considered. What can Clinton do to regain the trust of voters, generate genuine enthusiasm among grass-roots activists and reassure nervous Democrats that she will be a strong nominee atop the party’s ticket in November next year? They were about a broader case that Republicans are trying to turn back the clock on a full set of women’s health issues, from abortion to cancer screenings and the availability of contraception.

Clinton’s years-long flirtation with a second White House campaign — time her allies used to lock up support of much of the Democratic Party’s leadership — and her undeniable political celebrity have upended the traditional script. Bush, who accordingly wants to “ban state funding for some rape crisis centres because they sometimes refer women to places that do offer abortions”. Donors who have publicly expressed support for a Biden run have later been contacted by the Clinton team, according to fundraisers and Democratic strategists who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private conversations. This battle has tremendous implications for the 2016 presidential election, the outcome of which will make a big difference in how the US deals with abortion and funding for women’s health clinics. Bernie Sanders, whose vibrant crowds and steady poll numbers make him Clinton’s strongest current challenger. “So she has a huge advantage.” Yet Biden’s supporters see an opening, due in no small part to Clinton’s inability to shake questions about her use of a personal email server while serving as secretary of state.

The president has been working to line up enough votes to assure that he can prevent an override of an expected veto if there is a vote to disapprove the agreement. Clinton said the over-arching strategy was based on the lessons she learned from her last run, attributing her 2008 primary loss to a failure to capture enough backing from the party’s important super delegates — the party and elected officials who are empowered to select the presidential nominee at the Democratic national convention, regardless of what happens in the 2016 primaries. “We are working really hard to lock in as many supporters as possible,” Clinton told reporters on Friday. “This is really about how you put the numbers together to secure the nomination.” Clinton’s chief rival, Vermont Sen. His candor, long history of fighting for Democratic causes and personal struggles — a widower at a young age now grieving over the recent death of his son Beau — make him an admired figure in the party. “He’s one of us.

Bernie Sanders, predicted at the DNC meeting that top leaders would eventually migrate to his campaign. “Let’s see where we are in three months,” Sanders told reporters. Before and after the 2012 election, it was en vogue for top Democrats to say Tea Party Republicans acted like terrorists in legislative battles with President Barack Obama. She faces significant pressure to break with the president and oppose the deal and has been undertaking her own review before announcing her position. She recently picked up the endorsements of two former governors, Jim Hodges and Dick Riley, the latter who served as education secretary during Bill Clinton’s administration. In this case, Clinton was arguing that, in their zeal to foreclose avenues to abortion, Republicans would hold hostage for other important health care service for women. “I would like these Republican candidates to look a mom in the eye who caught her breast cancer early because she was able to get a screening for cancer or the teenager who didn’t get pregnant because she had access to contraception or anyone who’s ever been protected by an HIV test,” she said.

The fundamental claim is that Republicans aren’t respectful of women’s access to health care — that they are treating women like second-class citizens. When she returned to Iowa this week, she was joined by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former Iowa governor who wrote in an op-ed in the Gazette of Cedar Rapids that he intended to caucus for her, “plain and simple.” “I plan on supporting Secretary Clinton. And, as she was reading from notes while she spoke, it’s hard to make a credible case that Clinton didn’t deliberately draw some kind of parallel between Republican presidential candidates and terrorists. Her version of Draft Biden, a since-shuttered outside group called Ready for Hillary, spent years before Clinton got into the race amassing millions of email addresses of potential supporters.

In Chicago, Clinton is scheduled to attend fundraisers on Sept. 17 hosted by two longtime Obama supporters, attorney Joseph Power and businessman Michael Polsky. The text of the letter that was circulated and signed by DNC members said, in part: “We recognize that there are some who in good faith have expressed reservations with elements of the JCPOA but we believe that you and key members of your administration have effectively and respectfully responded to these concerns. While her husband presides over the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York in late September, Clinton will raise money at seven fundraisers planned in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Following her West Coast swing, Clinton may attend a fundraiser in Nashville with country music stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, but her campaign said late Friday that the event was not yet confirmed. While supporters say bigger checks have been rolling in recently, Clinton is a former first lady and senator from New York with a strong fundraising history.

But the DNC spokeswoman, who declined to be identified to describe internal deliberations, said emergency resolutions are usually reserved for things have happened between the time of the deadline and the party meeting. Clinton talked for about 15 minutes, drawing cheers when she assured them, “I’m not a quitter.” Ed Cote, a Washington state Democratic leader and a Clinton admirer, said that event was a perfect example of why Biden would find himself in a tougher primary than a sitting vice president might expect. Though restrictions on federal funding for abortion have long carried exemptions for victims of rape and incest, as well as expectant mothers whose lives are endangered by their pregnancies, the Republican Party platform in each of the last three presidential cycles has called for a Constitutional amendment banning abortion without exception. But there’s that side of her that needs to come across.” All the questions about Clinton would come into starker relief if Biden were to decide to run. Since the Supreme Court concluded in 1973 that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to have an abortion, anti-abortion activists have sought countless avenues to restrict abortion at the federal and state levels in ways that are consistent with the court’s ruling.

John Kasich signed legislation denying money to rape crisis centers that refer patients to abortion providers, and fellow Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush denied Florida state funds to Planned Parenthood when he was governor. Bush is campaigning on his promise to cut off federal subsidies for Planned Parenthood, a group that is one of the nation’s most prominent and popular providers of health care services for poor women. Rubio has supported legislation with those exemptions — part of a long-codified triumverate along with cases in which the expectant mother’s life is in danger — but said he would also back legislation without them.

Democrats took immediate note of his position because they believe it can be used to portray him as insensitive to the wishes of women who have become pregnant through acts of sexual violence. Mike Huckabee has said that abortion could be banned altogether under the Constitution if Congress passes a law giving “personhood” status to unborn babies. That despite the fact that, by a 44 percent to 34 percent spread, respondents who have seen the videos reported having more negative views of the group afterward.